Beechworth fire 'began near sagging power line'

Daniella Miletic

The Beechworth bushfire that claimed two lives and destroyed several homes started near a power line on Black Saturday and would likely have been faster, fiercer and spread further if not for previous years' fuel-reduction burns, the royal commission into the fires has been told.

In the commission's first country hearing yesterday, more than 50 local residents filed into Myrtleford's Savoy sporting club to hear evidence on the inferno that threatened their townships and blackened more than 32,000 hectares.

Some locals who saw the blaze in its infancy told the commission of a sagging power line. One local said she saw the fire when it was still the size of a car south of Beechworth near the Library Road intersection about 6pm on February 7.

''Above the fire I could see a power line looping down and touching the ground,'' said Tracy Johns, of Beechworth.

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The commission, which is this week based in regional Victoria to avoid witnesses having to travel to the city, also heard the Beechworth blaze would have been worse and spread an extra 12 kilometres were it not for prescribed burns.

Department of Sustainability and Environment district manager Shaun Lawlor said past fuel-reduction efforts coupled with old bushfires in the area between 2003 and 2008 had helped stop the fire spreading to the area between Myrtleford and Bright, where the Ovens Incident Control Centre is.

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During yesterday's hearing, further evidence of failed warnings emerged as locals who spotted the fire before it ''exploded'' told the commission they tried calling 000 but could not get through.

One, Brett Collins, tried his personal list of Department of Sustainability numbers and 000 but could not initially get in contact with authorities. Another drove to Beechworth to inform the CFA, only to find it empty with a notice outside telling him to call 000, which he had already tried several times.

Mr Collins, who is a casual DSE firefighter, told the hearing it was initially difficult to douse the flames in water because of the risk of being electrocuted. He said he did not see a tree near the power line, but another witness reported bare branches near the power lines.

An SP AusNet linesman told the commission a tree could have fallen near the power line.

Jack Rush, QC, counsel assisting the commission, told the hearing that power lines making contact with vegetation had been the cause of several bushfires, including those in 1962, 1969, 1972, 1977 and the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983. They were ''all at least in part caused by electrical fires on public and private land'', he said, and cost, in today's terms, $800 million.

In his opening statement, Mr Rush told the commission there were 130,000 kilometres of power lines around Victoria supported on up to 1.2 million poles.

While based in Myrtleford, the hearings will focus on the Beechworth fire, which affected more than 200 homes and killed two people in Mudgegonga.

On Thursday the commission will move to Horsham to investigate the fires that destroyed several homes in that area.